Last Day on Earth

There's been no rush hour traffic this week. I never passed a car until I pulled onto 27 by the Stoughton water works. Really weird. Like I was the last person on earth.

All the time I was thinking about my last drive to work, last time driving by the lake, looking a the cottages, the rocks I named (shark rock, turtle rock, duck rock), last time by the place where they sell eggs, and the cows and the deer crossing the road and the intersection where it's a pain to make a left turn (two of those actually), and the fancy new driveway of stone and the tear down and the Jesus statues in somebody's front lawn and the four cemeteries I pass--a big time mememto mori, and the zoned out Vietnam vets in the little park, and the fast food places in Stoughton and the Turnpike Cafe where I never ate and the other places I never ate and the stone yard and the Irish Center and everyplace on the way to work. If you look at a thing long enough, you own it, at least in some sense.

So it was hard and awkward to say goodbye to everyone, IT people not being the touchy-feely types with lots of hugs and stuff. More the foot-shuffling "nice working with you, good luck" kind of thing. I'm not good at goodbyes. My manager was supposed to take me to lunch but of course there was the crisis du jour with one of the web sites and so we have a rain (maybe a snow) date. That was all right. I had a salad, first healthy meal in a week.

Stopped at Shaw's and had a devil of a time finding the barley. They were out of pearl barley so I got the other kind, no big deal. Made beef vegetable barley soup with the bones and scraps of the prime ribs. Found a recipe on line. Soup was delish. Had good rye bread to eat with it, real whipped unsalted butter (just a dab) and everything tasted properly hearty. Soup is wonderful. One of these days I'll write an ode to soup but not tonight.

Finished wrapping the presents for our little visitor who comes tomorrow, so we'll have a second Christmas with some baking, shopping and festivities.

I mailed my short story off to MWA and no agents or editors responses graced today's mail. Sometimes I think about sending like maybe 100 queries out just to get a few answers. . Well, even literary types deserve a Christmas break. I found a really strange blog yesterday. You can find it by googling . There are plenty of writing blogs and mine seems quite tame and even a little prim without profanity and huge amounts of strum and drang, just a modicum of sucking it up all the time. So be it. http://www.theoldhag.com/

Now a quote lady of leisure unquote

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